1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to power saving control at a time of executing a scheduled print job in an image forming system equipped with an external image processing controller.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, there has been a demand for power saving in an image forming apparatus, as in various other electrical appliances. Specifically, an image forming apparatus enters a sleep state while not being used to thus refrain, as much as possible, from consuming unnecessary electricity. The same applies to an external image processing controller, and there has been such a demand that the image processing controller enters a sleep state while not being used to thus reduce power consumption.
Meanwhile, some image forming apparatuses and external image processing controllers have a scheduled print function. Specifically, by a scheduled print function, if a user sets a time and inputs a scheduled print job, the set print job is executed at the set time.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-220742, for example, discusses a method for saving power in such scheduled printing. According to the method discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-220742, if there is a scheduled print job by the time at which a printer enters a sleep state (within a sleep timer time), the scheduled print job is executed successively to reduce the number of times the printer enters a power saving mode, and thus power consumption is reduced.
While the method according to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-220742 is effective in saving power by moving forward a scheduled print job set to be executed within a sleep timer time and executing the schedule print job, the method is not effective in saving power for a scheduled print job set to be executed after the sleep timer time. In other words, an external image processing controller or an image forming apparatus needs to temporarily return from the sleep state only to print an accepted scheduled print job, causing such an issue that unnecessary power is consumed.